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Bush Reaffirms His Support for Gonzales

WASHINGTON, May 24 — President Bush said Thursday that he would correct any problems uncovered in the investigations of last year’s dismissals of federal prosecutors, but he added that nothing had undermined his support for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

“If there’s wrongdoing, it will be taken care of,” Mr. Bush said at a Rose Garden news conference, speaking of internal Justice Department inquiries into the dismissals of the United States attorneys and whether politics influenced how lower-level jobs were filled.

Democrats said that Mr. Gonzales’s credibility had been further eroded by the testimony on Wednesday of Monica M. Goodling, a former aide to the attorney general. Testifying under a grant of immunity from prosecution, Ms. Goodling said she had “crossed the line” in using inappropriate political considerations to screen applicants for nonpartisan legal jobs at the Justice Department.

Justice Department officials said Thursday that the investigation into potentially improper hiring practices involving Ms. Goodling had been broadened to include her role in helping to appoint federal immigration judges.

Some 75 of the 226 immigration judges have been appointed during the Bush administration. Forty-nine of them were appointed during the tenure of Mr. Gonzales, and it was during part of that period that Ms. Goodling was involved.

These immigration judges, stationed throughout the country, handled more than 300,000 cases last year on matters like deportation proceedings and political asylum requests.

Unlike federal judges, immigration judges are civil service employees, to be appointed by the attorney general based on professional qualifications, not their politics.

In Ms. Goodling’s tenure, vacancies were apparently not always posted and she selected lawyers to be considered for interviews based in part on their loyalty to the Republican Party and the Bush administration, she said in her testimony on Wednesday.

The judges appointed during her tenure include Mark H. Metcalf, a former Justice Department lawyer and Republican Congressional candidate in Kentucky.

Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, said new procedures had already been put into place, including the advertising of vacancies and the initial review of applicants by the office of the chief immigration judge.

“There is no disagreement within the department, including between the civil division and the office of legal counsel, about whether the civil service laws apply to the appointment of immigration judges,” Mr. Boyd said in a statement, disputing a claim by Ms. Goodling that political views of the applicants could be considered. “They do apply.”

The president’s comments came as Senate Democrats seeking Mr. Gonzales’s ouster unveiled the text of their nonbinding no-confidence resolution, which they said would be offered next month when Congress reconvenes after a weeklong recess.

The one-sentence resolution says, “It is the sense of the Senate that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and the American people.”

Though a number of Democrats and five Republicans have already called for Mr. Gonzales to step down, Mr. Bush said Thursday that he had not wavered in his support, declaring, “I’ve got confidence in Al Gonzales doing the job.”

Expressing his belief that the Congressional inquiry into the prosecutor dismissals was taking too long, Mr. Bush said, “I would hope the Senate and the Congress would move expeditiously to finish their hearing and get on the business of passing legislation.”

But Democrats continued to denounce Mr. Gonzales. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said: “The simple truth is Attorney General Gonzales has lost the confidence of many of us in the United States Senate. He is clearly not a strong leader in charge of this large and critical department.”

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who has led the investigation into the dismissals, said the no-confidence vote was justified. “When a situation becomes so serious that there’s a crisis of leadership of this magnitude,” Mr. Schumer said, “a Congress not only has the right to weigh in, we have a responsibility to take action.”

The Democrats said Ms. Goodling’s testimony about Mr. Gonzales had further fueled their complaints. She told the House Judiciary Committee about a private conversation with Mr. Gonzales in mid-March, shortly before she resigned, which she said left her feeling “uncomfortable” that he might have been trying to coach her into agreeing with his version of events related to the dismissals.

Justice Department officials said that Mr. Gonzales was not seeking to shape her recollections, but was trying to comfort Ms. Goodling at a difficult moment when she was upset at the prospect of giving up her job on his staff.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Bush Reaffirms His Support for Gonzales. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe